Family Cemeteries

Thankfully I was able to steal away for a few days during Christmas to visit family in Yoakum.  On the Thursday before Christmas, I drove to two cemeteries in which family are buried in order to pay my respects.  The cemetery in Hocheim and Westside Cemetery in Yorktown are the two I visited.  I haven't been to either place in well over ten years, and it was a great feeling to finally make it to both.  As per a previous blog entry, many of you already know of my historical fascination with cemeteries, whether or not I have any connection with them.  The time spent in each was very calming and gave a sense of my own mortality.  Many pictures were taken as I walked around paying my respects, as well as to read the headstones of the other plots.  I found many military designations: one for a man who was in the merchant marine, another who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War, and one who fought in the Spanish-American War on the cusp of the twentieth century.  (I'll include the pictures at the bottom of the post.)  Often I wonder what I would like inscribed on my headstone.  The implication of an inscription is a life which has made a mark or a difference in the mass of humanity around me.  Benjamin Franklin once stated, "Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing."  This is certainly true, but also adds the challenge (pressure) of making my mark on life.  Will my life count toward having a worthy inscription on my headstone?  This may not be true in the material world in which I live, but spiritually I may have had a hidden impact on someone's life I will never know about.  Where is my focus?  In the here and now, or in eternity?  This is something to ponder.  Go visit a cemetery sometime, and record your impression and thoughts.  You might surprise yourself.